Star Force: Baron (Star Force Universe Book 43) Read online

  “Noted.”

  “So the Preema really have some biological collectors?”

  “I have no idea. The Tahm are not a reliable source of information and this orb was not collected by the one that had it. His memories are not of underwater harvesting, but of diplomatic relations.”

  “Interesting regardless.”

  “Yes,” Daegan said, holding up and staring at the curious corovon orb. “Yes it is. Quite curious, indeed. Especially since the Preema just kicked out their harvesting crew.”

  3

  April 7, 4864

  Guldef System (Frontier Region)

  Bench

  Baron Daegan had one month left, more or less, to prepare his world/system that at present only contained one inhabited planet, and that planet had only Kiritak on it plus his staff that contained a mix of Humans, Protovic, Kiritak, and Calavari. None of them were aquatic, which was odd, but the Tahm were so damn slow in the water even he could almost swim as fast. And with aquatic armor that contained squirt jet engines his staff could move around easily enough in the water to keep pace with the lethargic Tahm.

  Whether or not that lethargy was biological or cultural was something he was going to have to figure out over the course of time, and building the book on the Star Force Tahm was his sole responsibility. Fortunately most of the structures needed to house the 128 million of the incoming refugees were up and running, with the remainder on schedule for completion within the next week. The Kiritak were as good of builders underwater as they were on land despite the limitations of the environment, and they’d done a damn good job of implementing Daegan’s plans.

  The world of Bench was mostly water with some large continents on it. That water was shallow over 93% of the oceans with the remainder being a very deep trench that carved a crescent moon around the northern pole. He planned on making use of it later, but for now he needed to keep the Tahm in the shallows near the shoreline, for the majority of their training was going to be on land.

  In fact, the maturias that had already been built but not yet inhabited were completely artificial marshes, and indoor no less. Daegan knew the younglings needed water, but he had a feeling if they didn’t develop their ‘land legs’ enough they’d end up sluggish. They needed to adapt early on, but a ‘dry’ maturia wasn’t going to work well. They were truly amphibians that needed a mix of environments, but putting them in the ocean was a bad idea. He needed to fully control the environment, so he’d simply had the Kiritak build one for him.

  Elarioni were still the premier aquatics race within Star Force, but they were not amphibian and could only deal with the Tahm in the water. That made them ill-suited as trainers for this scenario, so the Baron had recruited land races with good aquatics marks…plus the Calavari who had the muscle mass to move the fat Tahm around on land with ease. He’d picked up a vibe that they tended to use their heavy stature as a defense, and in Star Force that would not fly, so he wanted trainers that could make it clear they were not too heavy to throw around the room if need be.

  His maturia staff was fully assembled and ready to take in younglings as soon as they were born, including a transitional maturia for those already born but not yet to adulthood…which took about 8 years for the Tahm. They reproduced slow but grew fast, meaning they also ate a lot. Maturia training was probably going to take 25 years, so most of it would be with adults, but the proper maturia programs only accepted infants at birth. Any others had to be in transitional programs.

  For the 126 million adults they were getting, they were going to go through indoctrination training without the benefit of indoctrination programs. Daegan had to house all of them without being able to put them individually through an indoctrination program. That was one of the major headaches of the Beacon faction, because he had to deal with an existing civilization and couldn’t individualize them out one by one. The maturias would produce proper Tahm, but the first few ‘batches’ were going to be an experiment in the process with lots of tweaks having to be made as they learned what would and wouldn’t work with this new race.

  But the ones that were soon to arrive were not going to fully change, so Daegan had to make use of them in their current state while forcing some changes on them. To help with this he’d had small settlements built rather than large cities, with several extra where he could move individuals around based on their behavior, grouping together those that were compliant and isolating those that were causing trouble…all the while keeping them working to build their new world and reminding them that he was in charge.

  Daegan doubted they were going to accept that if he couldn’t offer them an angle, for everything he had learned about them said they were cunning businessmen…with too few ethics. They wanted to make deals, so the dealmaker he was going to have to become. One potential angle he had already thrown out to their representatives in Citadel, who would be arriving along with the main convoy, was the new divide within the empire. The Frontier Region could not trade with the established regions, meaning there was going to be a vacuum of products in the Frontier Region. Those who got their exports flowing fastest would be able to capitalize on that and potentially develop a bit of a monopoly in the absence of the major trading powerhouses.

  Bench was a long way from that, but the potential was there and the Tahm had responded much better to the offer of greatness than being told to just sit and reproduce as refugees. It was odd, because they were so lethargic, yet give them an objective they liked and suddenly there was an uncharacteristic enthusiasm there. Whether that turned into actual work or was just talk was unknown, but it was clear everything was going to come to a head when the convoy arrived. How well this was going to work he didn’t know, but he was sure that he was going to have to adjust on the fly, which was the reason why Davis had put him here.

  He just hoped he’d designed the infrastructure in a way that was advantageous for him to hold sufficient leverage. There was only going to be one arrival, and if he botched it he wasn’t going to get a second chance for a first impression…and he was pretty sure that the Tahm were heavily influence by reputation. Daegan had to create a powerful and fair one, but as always with liars there were no rules, so he expected there to be some trouble, though he had no idea how much was actually coming his way.

  5 months later…

  “Get back in line!” the Calavari trainer yelled, with his voice being processed through a headpiece into the Tahm’s native language with a slight delay, but it wasn’t that delay that was causing the Tahm to stray out of position.

  “My feet hurt,” he complained, still shuffling off to the side where he defiantly sat down on a low bench…which for the Tahm was little more than a bump on the ground due to their very short legs.

  “A lot more than that is going to hurt if I have to hurl you into the chute,” the Calavari warned. “Move into position yourself or I’m moving you.”

  “My feet hurt,” the Tahm reiterated, unbudging as two more Tahm waddled over and sat down, echoing similar difficulties that prevented them from walking a few more meters to the entrance of the waterslide where they would be moving on their butts, not their feet, so the complaint was painfully invalid, which only further infuriated the Calavari.

  “That’s it. Everyone else stay put. You’re going next,” the trainer said, pointing his lower left arm with a thick finger on the end towards the short, pudgy alien.

  “I am not,” he said as the huge Calavari walked over to him and reached down, grabbing him by both the arms and the legs, one Calavari hand on each, and picked him up by them. The Tahm screamed, burped, and made all other kinds of sounds in protest, but he was essentially a dead weight and couldn’t do anything other than use his tongue…which he did, smacking the Calavari in the face with it.

  The trainer didn’t budge, carrying him over to the surging waters in the little oval pond that flowed down a chute. He didn’t put the Tahm into the pond, but rather swung him clear over it and sent him down the waterslide head fi
rst, then turned and pointed at the other two sitting.

  “On your feet now, or you’re going the same way!”

  One of them did stand up and got back into line, but the other didn’t. When the Calavari began to walk over to him the Tahm got up and began to run away with surprising speed, but a few long strides by the Calavari caught up to him and soon he was baggage as well…but being carried face down so his tongue couldn’t be used against the trainer.

  He got tossed face down into the chute and disappeared as the flowing water and gravity pulled the obstinate alien out of view and into the challenge course that they did not like being put through…for if they stopped midway they’d get shot by drones, meaning they had to keep moving to the finish and couldn’t sit down in protest like so many of them had done over recent months.

  The new challenge course had been a modification made on the Baron’s order, and it was working, because they really didn’t want to go into the thing again…which was why more of this style were being constructed, with the trainers offering many little advice wrinkles to the designs, finding ways to irritate and motivate the Tahm who did not want to be here, did not want to be part of Star Force, and certainly did not want to be made to train.

  But they were going to learn, the easy way or the hard way, and aside from a small group of individuals who had been separated from the others and allowed to go through normal training, the rest were being thrown through these ‘gauntlet’ challenges, and it looked like this was the only way for the adult population to learn anything, for they were stubborn as hell.

  Fortunately this Calavari and the others knew how to deal with stubborn, and it almost always began and ended with muscle. Which they had plenty of.

  The Protovic trainers were taking a different approach, using their telepathy to trick the Tahm into doing things and calling out their lies and punishing them for them. And via punishment, it was usually another run through a gauntlet course. The only other thing they hated worse was being denied their choice of food, but the Baron had already decreed that wasn’t to be touched, for it would be a legitimate complaint and he didn’t want to give them any. So they got to eat all the food they wanted, and Star Force had designed a lot of new things specifically for them, then they were required to put that food to work in training…and so far none had gone on a hunger strike in protest, and the Calavari didn’t think any of them ever would.

  “Alright, let’s keep this moving. Next,” he said when the countdown timer expired, allowing those ahead of them long enough for the system to shift from one chute to another so they didn’t end up going to the same location. This gauntlet trial was randomized between groups and individuals, and whenever they went down it they never knew what they were going to have to face, for there were 183 different scenarios.

  And the recovery wards for those that got shot were always busy, with their stunned bodies being hauled there and revived inside a small box that they had to then sit out a penalty time in. That was actually preferable to some of them, until they realized that they were missing a meal because of it.

  For those that didn’t care, the stun shots had been dosed up with pain inducers so they now literally stung on impact…and after. When destunned, the stinging didn’t go away, so they now sat in their little boxes in mild pain. Nothing major, but enough to be an annoyance.

  The Tahm that were in the ‘good’ group didn’t have those modifications, but it was necessary for the rest because they would literally just sit down on the ground in protest and do nothing. So now, they could sit in their little box and feel tiny stings as long as they did, and they hated it. The completion rate of the gauntlet challenges had initially been 1.4%. Now it was up to 58%, proving that the Tahm weren’t incapable, just unmotivated.

  “Next! Move along. You’re gonna get used to this sooner or later. Might as well make it sooner for your sake,” he said as one of the Tahm slid over the edge and sat down in the pool, then pulled himself forward into the heaviest current with his flippers, not giving the Calavari cause to do any ‘motivating’ and sent himself down the chute on his own muscle.

  “I hate you,” another Tahm said, but still in line. It was a female, which was only noticeable by the head shape. Otherwise they all looked identical. They actually reproduced using their tongues, so there was no visible genitalia to differentiate them with, and none of them were wearing clothes. There was no point indoors, and outdoors it would require temperatures outside the comfortable range.

  Calavari did wear clothes, because they did have exterior genitalia, but the Tahm were a race that didn’t and their grey/green blubbery bodies all looked alike, but the trainers were able to tell most of them apart by now, and this one was Amber-16.

  “If you didn’t, I wouldn’t be doing my job you lazy ass. Get in there before I have to use my foot again.”

  Amber-16 reflexively rubbed her round backside, remembering the last time she’d refused right on the edge of the pool and had been kicked in face first. That memory was enough to get her grudgingly to step in on her own, swearing a long string of vitriol that the computer translation couldn’t articulate.

  Whenever he got that the Calavari took it as a sign of success, and a few seconds later Amber-16 was sliding down the chute and turning to the left out of view, reducing the number of Tahm up top that he had to make sure got started.

  “Next!”

  Baron Daegan walked out on the deck, tasting the warm, humid air of the planet as he came to the rail and leaned on it, looking over the edge at the gigantic drop-off that gave an awe inspiring view of the coastline and the hundreds of dome-shaped buildings below. Each of those had a water tunnel inside that led to the ocean and little infrastructure on the outside, for this planet suffered from severe hurricanes on a regular basis. One was brewing even now on the horizon, but it wouldn’t be here for another day. Those inside the domes wouldn’t even notice it, and go deep enough in the ocean and you could ride it out with ease.

  As it was, most Tahm were not even permitted in the ocean, for some had tried to skip workouts by hiding out there. They eventually came back when they got hungry, but a few had tried killing local sea creatures to eat so they could stay out there indefinitely. Daegan had shut that down as soon as he heard about it, and those that had were now sitting in the few prisons he’d had constructed. They probably liked not having to do workouts, but they had zero connection to the other Tahm. As social of creatures as they were, he figured that isolation would be punishment enough to keep them from repeating their bad behavior when they were let out after their 3 month sentences expired.

  This entire mission was one headache after another, but there were a few bright spots. The maturias were doing adequately well, despite their youth, and the ‘good group’ of adults was actually making considerable progress. It was the percentage that was so alarming. Almost all of the adults were basically baggage, and Daegan wasn’t going to be able to get anything even resembling a work crew suitable to replace the Kirtiak within decades. They’d have to stay and keep underwriting these lazy, egotistical liars…so the idea of planetary self-sufficiency was a far-fetched notion at this point without the Kiritak.

  Their reproduction rates were also dropping drastically, for they didn’t like the idea of handing over their younglings to Star Force. That meant it was going to take forever to replace the adults. At least he had a workable population in the maturias to repopulate with over time if the adults stopped reproducing altogether, but it seemed like everything positive he tried to do, the Tahm found a way to block or at least slow him down.

  And what he was doing was for their benefit, which made this situation all the more infuriating.

  Davis was right about this being totally different than Administrator work. Daegan had always found little bits of inefficiency in the Protovic ranks, but they were literally perfect compared to the Tahm. How people could be this stupid he couldn’t fathom, but he was learning quickly and now had a great deal more res
pect for Davis if this was the type of environment he had had to build Star Force within in the very beginning. Daegan at least had an empire to pattern off of and pull personnel from. Building it from scratch…now that was a challenge he did not know how Davis had ever accomplished.

  He’d said that Daegan would be thrown in over his head, and now he knew what the Director had meant. His Archon assistance had laid out the path that had to be taken, knuckles first, with the Tahm, but there wasn’t much they could do that the trainers could not, so they were being wasted here, training in their sanctums until something arose that needed their attention.

  Daegan knew this was just going to take time. A lot of time. Grinding time, small victory by small victory whenever and wherever he could find them. That was something a Monarch had to do, and would be a waste of the Archons’ skills. At least they could train and tune all this out, but Daegan was the one that had to be waist deep in it, and was having to earn his Monarch rank from day one, for these Tahm were all but totally intractable.

  But then again, if it wasn’t hard it wouldn’t be a challenge. And a challenge for a Monarch that the Director thought might mirror his own potential. In that case, Daegan might actually be getting off a bit easy. And that thought thoroughly scared him.

  4

  April 19, 4864

  Kollop System (Frontier Region)

  Nexus Station

  David-441 stepped off the Star Force dropship onto the foreign hangar deck that had a myriad of The Nexus races inhabiting one of the last intact refuges in the spinward, or ‘west,’ side of what had once been The Nexus territory. This system didn’t even have an inhabited planet in it, just this 340 mile wide space station that was still active as a hub of commerce. Star Force had a sizeable presence on it and was using it as a staging base for their emergency efforts in the region, with David just having returned from fighting in two different star systems.